


Sand

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:23:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's sand in my room.It doesn't go away. It keeps coming back, and it's always in my room.[More or less a monster of the week fic]





	Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Turns out writing a story with a mute character is obscenely hard. I'm taking a break from the other story to write this one don't worry, I have advanced around 1200 words in the other one, I just need a break from trying to express someone when he cannot understand the world, and the world cannot understand him.

There’s sand in room.

It’s quite hard to deny. It appears, and I clean it. And it always shows up overnight. When no one is looking. Evenly spread across my whole room.

I didn’t think of it much. It must have come in from somewhere. A construction site nearby, leaving my windows open. If I was unlucky, the “sand” would come from termites, being their defecation from devouring my furniture. 

I progressed against it. Checked my clothes before entering. Swapped out the furniture outside of my room, just to see what was being eaten. No need to be wasteful when you’re on a limited budget and attending Uni.

All and all, It wasn’t something that really impacted my mind until now. I have gone over to my parent’s house to spend vacations. Something that has happened, really. It’s hard to enjoy it when both of them keep pressuring you to finish college and get a job, to stop being an economic burden, or when your mother asks you to assist in her shop. I spent my days like I would most free days: stumbling across the internet, busting over idiots over for having idiotic questions on some board assisted by my internet granted anonymity, and watching videos.

You know, what I happen to do most days. I let the monotony of it consume me day after day. Sitting in the green that was my room basked in the yellow tint of the curtains I grew up with, occasionally chasing my cat, or meeting up my group of friends.

And then the sand started appearing again.

I noticed it one day that my cat had been running around, chasing whatever he could get his hands on as a toy. “Oliver!” I would call him, every time he did something retarded, or decided to sharpen his claws on my bed. In fact, I was doing just that, when I noticed it.

The sand.

It shouldn’t have unnerved me as much as it should have. After all, it’s just sand. But It was the same colour as the sand I found, back in the apartment my parent’s allowed me to stay over. Pearl white, and sometimes grey. I had grown familiar with such sand colour when I had done art, for the IB. It was the kind of “sand” you would get from powdering granite. After all, who was I to be worried about “sand”? It’s just small powdered rock. It cannot hurt you! 

I cleaned it as soon as I saw it. 

I would feel a great deal of relief if the sand didn’t return. I checked myself, my cat, and my furniture once more. Growing dissatisfied, I removed the old carpet I had kept since I was a child, in an attempt to discover how the sand kept getting in. It wasn’t there when I went to bed.

…

“Mom,” I asked one day, and in a different language. “Where does the sand in my room keep coming from?”  
My dad was working that day, and I didn’t want to worry him. As far as I knew, unless he could teleport to my room every night to wish me goodnight, he couldn’t be bringing over the sand. And anyway, this sand wasn’t red-tinted, so it couldn’t be from the mine my dad worked over.  
“What sand?” She responded back. It didn’t take much to show her a small amount of the stuff I had collected one of the many bottle caps that I often picked up for no reason. I showed her my room and the evident lack of sand.

“I’ll check on it tomorrow.” She replied, as uncaring as she was at the time. 

When tomorrow came, the small puppy we had picked up from the street had vanished. But the sand was there, once again. Sure, I was upset over the disappearance of Lucky, but it wasn’t like we were particularly close like me and Olli. My mother was particularly distraught about this event. We kept it mostly free, and the puppy loved me the most, my mother loved the puppy the most. I am not one to hate animals, I have kept over 7 cats across my life, 4 of which are still alive to this day, but the small pupper was kind of annoying at night, barking at my window while I slept, begging to be left inside.

I still feel like shit for not caring more about it though.

…

I think this all leads up to this day. I have bought a security camera that triggers with movement. A small, chargeable model. Small enough to fit underneath my bed, and to record where the sand, now consistently appearing on the right side of my bed, kept coming from. I have set it up before dinner, and I certainly hope, it will bring me the peace of mind I consistently desire. 

“Say Carl” My dad’s voice brings me out of my mind, my thought screeching to a halt before they lay forgotten. “Have you paid for your upcoming semester of College?”

I shake my head. I haven’t. Be it procrastination, getting distracted, or helping around in the shop, the ever-looming sense of failure creeps up on my back, similarly to whenever I make a mistake. 

“Could you say that louder? I didn’t hear you.” Voice loud, but neutral. It’s clear he’s annoyed, but not strictly ticked off.

“…no” 

My mother, eating in front of me, almost about finished with the basic meal of rice and lentils, gives me one of the looks she gives at anyone who dares to look at her wrong. I show no response however, years of…

It makes you numb.

Standing up, and dropping her plate at the kitchen sink, she heads to her computer. “Digital advertisement”, she calls it. “It helps with sales, that’s how I afforded to pay for the car, you know?” It’s pretty much the only thing she does when she’s on her computer, looking at social media, trying to get people to buy the variety of dolls that she sells. With how impressionable she often is, I fear she might fall into a hole of conspiracy theories, and never come back out.

“You gonna eat that?” My dad is already done with his food; he just enjoys the company of other people. It’s clear he has noticed that the food on the plate of the only person on the table who isn’t finished, is being played with.

I hesitate, but I nod. He continues browsing his phone.

Half of the time, I have no idea what he is searching. He often comes up with bizarre facts, weird stories, and occasionally, tragic news.

I finish up, the food grown cold, and the rice grown clumped due to my negligence in eating it when it was first made. Scooping up the remains, and throwing them to the organic waste bin the dishes begin being cleaned.

By the time of the second one is done, it’s easy to deduce was my younger sister’s. She’s always been a picky eater. Mostly potatoes, rice, and some salad. That’s all she ate. I’m pretty sure that she has some sort of eating disorder, but I’m not a psychologist yet. The lack of a conclusive diagnosis comes from my mother’s distrust of therapists, and her dislike for the ones currently treating me. I think it was caused by Facebook, much like she thinks my dislike of Nestlè and Disney were caused by my older sister. The plate is clean, and a picture of my older sister comes to mind.

She’s always been one for doing the outstanding and the interesting things. She’s the best at art, no competition. She is aloof, yet able to be focused. By far the most socially capable of all of the siblings. She has a disregard for authority, something I don’t happen to have unless said Authority is blatantly wrong. “The perfect punching bag” my mother called me. I just hope that at whatever studio she’s working on, she’s taking care.

The fourth plate is my mother’s. My dear old mother. I and my older sister have always thought she has some form of borderline personality disorder. Existing without treatment, a hair-trigger temper, and the ability to form conclusions and stick with them without evidence is my main cause of worry. That’s not to say she hasn’t been a good mother, it’s just that her own mother did so many things wrong that she has no idea how to do motherly stuff. It’s easy to see how she turned like that; with a cheating father and another mother with a borderline personality disorder, it’s clear she tries her best but fails.

My father is the son of a stern man, under poor conditions. It’s clear that he is proud of how far he has taken the family he has created for himself. Three kids that while not always spectacular, are good enough to do things not related to drugs, or alcohol, or any other kind of scandalous activities. One of those parents that like to go on walks, museums, camping trips, it’s easy to see where I got that from. The remains on his plate are nearly nonexistent.

Drying my hands, and I check my room again…

My laptop is turned on. Unblocked too. The recording program is open, and no camera is synced. Frenetically checking under the bed, I only find pieces of plastic, and bits of metal.

I don't know what to do.


End file.
